by Peter Oxley
“Especially given that we stole the source of their power into the bargain,” pointed out Byron.
“Exactly,” said Joshua. “We took away their ability to get at us when we removed that thing.” He pointed to the disk in Byron’s hands.
Pearce cleared his throat. “Actually, about that,” he said. “I am not sure that you did remove their powers just in time.”
“What do you mean?” asked Andras.
He tapped a finger on his forehead. “I don’t think I’m quite alone in here.”
“Are you positive?” Andras said. “How can you be sure?”
“I know my own mind,” Pearce replied. “And I know that I should not be experiencing what I am right now.”
“But we took away her power,” Andras yelled. “She should not have been able to…” He turned and let out a stream of curses whilst Gaap watched from the end of his leash with an amused wrinkle to his eyes.
“She did something immediately after the spell she cast on Kate and before you all appeared,” said Pearce. “I cannot quite recall, and it is no doubt beyond my understanding, but…” He shrugged.
“How do you feel?” asked Byron.
“Perfectly fine, although I have the distinct feeling of others around me; almost like those creatures we were surrounded by in the afterlife. As though they were standing just beyond my line of sight, whispering to each other and waiting.”
I gestured to the others and we retreated a few paces from Pearce and Kate. “Could it be the Wraith?” I asked in a whisper.
Andras frowned. “He does not appear to be demonstrating the symptoms. You see, a Wraith is a rather violent creature. They are not a parasite as such: they invade, rather than inhabit. If the Wraith was in there, we would know about it.” He shook his head. “It appears that they were faster and smarter than I gave them credit for. Shut your mouth, you,” he snapped at Gaap, who appeared to be enjoying Andras’ rage and grinning behind his gag.
“What do we do?” I asked. “We can’t allow them to go back to Earth, surely?”
“Absolutely not,” said Byron. “We have no idea as to their intentions, or indeed what they are capable of.”
“That creature said they just wanted to observe the land of the living,” said Joshua slowly. “What is so bad about that?”
“In and of itself, probably nothing,” said Andras. “But then we attempted to double-cross them and stole something of huge value…”
“By ‘we’ you of course mean ‘you’,” Byron pointed out. “As with so many things, all of this could have been avoided if you had not chosen to act precipitately.”
“If I had not chosen to act, she would now be a Mage, or dead,” snapped Andras, pointing at Kate. “Time and again, my actions have saved you all.”
“Aside from when you tried to kill us, steal our souls or invade our world,” I muttered. As he rounded on me I held up my hands. “We need to calm down; this is solving nothing.”
“You are right,” said Byron. “So are we agreed?”
“What are you lot muttering about over there?” Kate called over.
“They are debating whether I should be allowed back to Earth,” said Pearce. “And I agree that I should not; I will not allow these creatures to invade our world. We have enough problems with the Almadites. I will remain here.”
I nodded, relieved that his sense of duty and propriety had spared us any further fighting.
Byron turned to Joshua. “You realise that this means that Lexie cannot come with us either,” he said.
Joshua turned on him and for a moment I feared he would strike our friend. “No,” he said quietly. “I am not leaving her; not again.”
“The Pooka is right,” Andras said. “She does not belong this side of the afterlife. Just her very presence could give them the way into your world that they crave. Who knows: she could have inadvertently been responsible for Pearce’s possession.”
“No!” shouted Joshua. “I will not have her taken away from me. If you want me to create a portal back to Earth, then she comes with us.”
As he stomped away, Lexie turned to face us. “I am not a threat to you or our home,” she said. “I just want to be safe with my brother once more, to get back to my old life. Just think how much use I would be if I could work with Maxwell once more.”
I frowned at her, my resolve weakening as I considered the sense behind her words.
“Lexie,” said Byron softly, “we have no way of knowing the consequences… you were dead…”
“And maybe I still am, or perhaps I am something else. Somewhere in my condition, in what has happened to me, could be the key to winning the war against the Almadites. The best person to consider all of this is currently sitting on Earth: surely you owe it to all of us to take me to Maxwell, so he can consider how I might be able to help?”
Joshua marched back over to us, grabbing Lexie by the arm. “I am creating a portal back to Earth and Lexie is coming with me; there is nothing any of you can do to stop me.”
“Joshua, please,” said Byron, but the young man had already turned and walked away.
“Well?” I asked the others.
Andras was watching them depart. “Young Lexie has recovered her poise remarkably quickly, don’t you think?” he mused.
“He’s right that we can’t stop him,” said Byron, ignoring him. “All we can do is keep as close to them as possible, in case Lexie’s presence does something.”
“The risk may not be that high,” said Andras. “We are out of the afterlife here, in the land of the living as it were, even though it is a different land of the living to the one you are accustomed to. The point is, that we are already out of the afterlife and she is acting perfectly benign. Maybe she is not a threat to your realm after all.”
“You could extend that logic to Captain Pearce,” pointed out Byron.
“Granted,” shrugged Andras. “It was just a thought.”
We joined Joshua and Lexie, watching as they made the arrangements for the portal spell. Andras grunted his approval. “Clever,” he said. “You are going to use the power of the rune to create two portals close together.”
Joshua nodded, tight-lipped, and so I looked to Andras for an explanation.
“We have previously used vehicles to protect ourselves from the worst excesses of the Aether whilst travelling through it, something that we are lacking at the moment,” he said. “One cannot punch directly from one realm to another, but young Joshua here has come up with a solution: creating a portal to the Aether and then another portal right in front of that one, which will go to Earth, thereby limiting the amount of time we need to spend in the Aether itself.”
“I did not realise that was an option,” I said. “Why have we not done that before?”
“Because it requires two things that were missing before,” said Joshua, unable to resist showing off any longer. “The knowledge of the exact location of the realm that we need to create the second portal back to Earth, and the power to do it. Earth is one of the few places I can easily find in the Aether, and the runes we have in our possession give me the power I need to create both portals simultaneously. Now, stand back please.”
We did as we were told, shuffling backwards as Joshua began the incantations. Byron grunted in surprise as the rune in his hands started glowing and vibrating. Not to be outdone, I felt the sword strapped to my back also resonate in sympathy with the magical forces. Gaap started to shuffle around, as though he wanted to be as far away as possible.
The now-familiar sight of a portal spun into existence in front of us, the vortex showing the loathsome blackness of the Aether beyond. Joshua’s chanting increased and, a moment later, the portal revealed a second vortex within, showing the familiar green grass and blue sky of home.
There was a sound like vomiting from behind us, followed by a bellow and then a scream. I turned to see Kate backing away from Pearce, who was standing erect and somehow suspended a foot or so in the air. His face was stretched and con
torted, his mouth and eyes wide as a dark mass pulled itself from his body.
“Close it!” shouted Andras but, before Joshua could respond, the black mass shot towards and past us, through the portal. We were thrown backwards by the force of its passing, watching as the portal popped shut behind it.
“What happened?” I shouted as I pulled myself to my feet.
“It—something—the creatures that possessed Pearce,” said Byron, staring at where the portal had been just a few seconds beforehand. “They have gone across to Earth!”
“Get the portal open again, now,” said Andras.
Lexie looked up at us from where Joshua lay, a few feet from where the portal had disappeared. “He is unconscious,” she said. “The force of the blast must have knocked him out.”
“We need him awake,” Andras said, kneeling next to Joshua. “We need a portal back to Earth right now.”
She glared back at him. “You lay a finger on him and I will make you suffer,” she hissed.
I looked from that standoff to where Pearce lay slumped on the ground being tended to by Kate. “This does not look good,” I commented quietly.
“That,” said Byron, “would be an understatement.”
Pearce groaned as he woke up. “What happened?” he asked.
“You puked black,” said Kate.
“You were somehow purged of whatever it was that possessed you,” I said. “The bad news is that whatever was inside you has managed to escape to Earth, and we are still trapped here.”
He sat up quickly and then slumped back down again, putting a hand to his head.
“Take it easy,” said Kate. “You’ll need a few moments to get over havin’ that thing in your head. Trust me, I know.”
I felt a pang of jealousy as I watched them share a look of understanding and sympathy. After a moment, Pearce looked over to me. “We need to get back to Earth,” he said.
I gestured to where Andras, Byron and Lexie were gathered round Joshua. “We are doing our best,” I said. “Unfortunately our only method of getting there was knocked out in the process and is still unconscious.”
“So… we wait?” he asked.
“We have little choice,” I said. “Which is a problem in and of itself. You see, I have finally realised what was so familiar about this place.”
Kate looked around. “Looks like where we were when that demon snatched me,” she said, letting out a little laugh. “Like I’ve never been away.”
Pearce groaned. “You mean…?”
“Yes,” I said. “Not even time is on our side.”
Kate looked from one to the other of us. “What is it?”
“When we were here last time, it was only for a few hours,” I said. “However, when we got back to Earth, quite a few days had passed.”
She frowned. “So every second we waste here is a lot more back on Earth?” We both nodded and she pulled herself to her feet. “Then we really do need to get a move on, don’t we?”
I jumped up to support her as she swayed on her feet. “You should also take it easy,” I said. “You have not yet recovered from your own ordeal.”
“Sod that,” she said. “Take me over there, I’ll get laughin’ boy woken up. And by the by, don’t think that all this lets you off the hook for what you did. I’ll be dealin’ with you later.”
“Me?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“Later,” she said with a determined look on her face.
I paced the rock-strewn landscape as we waited for Joshua to summon up the energy to create a portal back home. He had finally woken up, thanks in no small part to Kate’s rough treatment that had in turn earned the simmering wrath of Lexie. However, he was still weak and disorientated, having caught a hard blow to the side of his head when he had fallen to the ground.
“How are you?” asked Byron, wandering over to join me.
“I am stuck in some vast desert on a nameless world with a pair of Almadites of uncertain motivation and a young sorcerer who seems to have been driven mad with grief. But at least he has his dead sister here to comfort him. Meanwhile there are spirits doing who-knows-what to my home and, to top it all off, the girl we went to save is blaming me for everything having gone so disastrously wrong. Not that I can blame her.” I flashed him a tight smile. “So you could say that I have had better days.”
“Kate does not blame you; she knows we are all equally at fault for what happened.”
“In my experience, she has a very effective method of apportioning blame quite violently as a way of motivating people to set things right post-haste.”
“Then we make it right,” said Byron, sitting down on a large rock. “Moping around never helped anyone, eh?”
“Are you adopting the role of my tutor again?”
He laughed. “I don’t think I ever stopped, did I? Come on, let’s think all of this through. You and me, while Andras is distracted.”
I looked over at where the demon was bent over Joshua, helping him to prepare for the process of getting us back to Earth. “You still do not trust him, do you?”
“No, and neither do you,” he said. “That is the healthiest state of affairs for all of us. Remember: he is still an Almadite, even if he fights with us against the Four Kings.”
“What is it that he wants?” We had both instinctively lowered our voices; probably a futile effort given the demon’s acute sense of hearing, but it at least gave us the delusion of privacy.
“What he has always wanted: power. The question is, what is the extent of his ambitions? To rule Almadel once more? Or does he want to continue their conquests throughout all the realms?”
“He has reassured me that he has no designs on Earth,” I said.
“And you believe him?” Byron raised an eyebrow at me.
I ran my fingers through my hair. “He says that he has been changed by what he has experienced on Earth, including the time he spent with us when he was N’yotsu. He says that he has been ‘infected’ by our emotions,” I grinned at the use of the word, “and that they would stop him from carrying out the sort of atrocities he used to commit. Or at least make him think twice before doing so.”
“Emotions are a two-sided coin though, are they not?”
I nodded. “And so is Andras; he is a particularly spiteful and vicious creature, but he has also fought on our side a number of times now.”
“Let’s consider this in the light of selfish acts, given how he accused us all of acting in that manner,” said Byron. “Yes he fights with us against the Four Kings, but their overthrow would also serve him, because then he would be able to seize power for himself.”
“In that case, why help us with Kate?” I asked. “To ensure that there was one less weapon that they could use against us?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it was a useful opportunity for him to return home and cause trouble; do you remember how he made a pact with Mama? And all that talk of helping to start a revolution in Almadel? We still do not know everything he agreed with her.”
“And now he also has Gaap, and so has a valuable bargaining tool to use against the Four Kings: their right-hand man.”
Byron nodded and then held up the disk that Joshua had brought back from the afterlife. “This also troubles me. The five runes were scattered across the realms as a way of protecting the rest of us. If one being, or even a race, were to get hold of the supreme power they provide when unified…”
“Is it really that bad?” I asked.
“Oh yes.” He jumped down and drew a dozen circles in the dust at our feet, each one spaced a hands-width apart from its nearest neighbours. “Imagine that these are the different realms in existence, with the space between being the Aether. At present, it requires an individual of great power and ability to create a portal that can link from their realm through to the Aether.”
“Such as Joshua,” I said.
“Yes. Him or the Warlocks. Of course, some realms are harder to puncture than others: such as Earth before the Ful
crum weakened the barrier to the Aether.” He drew a line from inside one of the circles out into the empty space of the Aether. “Once in the Aether, one then needs to find the realm that one wishes to travel to and create another portal to it.” He continued the line straight into another circle. “Which again requires great power and effort, as we are seeing right now.” He nodded at Joshua.
“If one has enough power,” he continued, “and knows exactly where the two realms are, it is possible to build a bridge that constantly links those two places. This has been done in the past, but only for short periods of time, given the sheer amount of energy needed to maintain it. This is why the Almadites, while they have been a scourge on the worlds they have invaded, have only managed to spread intermittently across the realms.”
“Where do these runes fit in?” I asked.
He placed his finger in one of the circles. “The holder of the power of all five runes would no longer be limited by any of the laws I have described.” He moved his finger out to another circle, then another and another. “They could move about the realms at will, taking whole armies with them. They could build everlasting bridges or even merge realms. They could rule all creation.”
I shuddered, looking down at the line he had drawn, linking and jumping to every single circle. “That seems pretty… terrifying.”
“Which is exactly why we need to ensure that no one is able to unite all of the runes.”
“What do we do with that, then?” I asked, pointing at the rune in his hands, the small, disc-like object that until not long ago had taken the form of an entire mausoleum in the afterlife. Until, that is, Joshua had intervened and transformed it into its current, more portable form. “Should we hide it somewhere here?”
He shook his head. “There is every risk that the Almadites will be following us. We cannot risk it falling into the Four Kings’ hands; they already have two of the runes.”
We both looked up at a burst of activity from the others. “Ah, it looks like Joshua may now be about ready to do the deed.”
I stepped through the portal, experiencing the now-familiar disorientating swirl that accompanied travel through the barrier between worlds. This was amplified by the fact that I was doing so without any form of vehicle to transport or protect me.
